In general, consumer or small business grade networking devices are installed on user premises to support local area networks (LAN). Often, these networking devices are commodity devices that are provided by an internet service provider (ISP) as part of an internet subscription service. In other cases, consumers directly purchase devices to serve as routers and wireless access points. Typically, these devices perform router functions such as forwarding data packets between computer networks such as the LAN for the premises and the service provider networks, which provides access to the internet. Often, these networking devices include Wi-Fi capability, which is wireless local area networking based on the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802.11 standards. They also maintain the local network and perform functions such as Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) services, domain name system (DNS) services, point-to-point protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) services, network address translation (NAT) services, provide encryption such as WPA2, and a firewall, among other things.
Typically, configuration settings for networking devices are accessed and modified via an integrated web server function. Users administer the devices through a web browser operating on a desktop computer or mobile computing device. More recently, networking devices have been offered that can be administered via an app installed on a mobile computing device such as a smartphone.